The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume IV Part 1

The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India.

Volume IV.

by R.V. Russell.

PART II

ARTICLES ON CASTES AND TRIBES

k.u.mHAR--YEMKALA

VOL. IV

k.u.mhar

List of Paragraphs

1. _Traditions of origin_.

2. _Caste subdivisions_.

3. _Social Customs_.

4. _The k.u.mhar as a village menial_.

5. _Occupation_.

6. _Breeding pigs for sacrifices_.

7. _The G.o.ddess Demeter_.

8. _Estimation of the pig in India_.

9. _The buffalo as a corn-G.o.d._ 10. _The Dasahra festival_.

11. _The G.o.ddess Devi_.

1. Traditions of origin

_k.u.mhar, k.u.mbhar_.--The caste of potters, the name being derived from the Sanskrit _k.u.mbh_, a water-pot. The k.u.mhars numbered nearly 120,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911 and were most numerous in the northern and eastern or Hindustani-speaking Districts, where earthen vessels have a greater vogue than in the south. The caste is of course an ancient one, vessels of earthenware having probably been in use at a very early period, and the old Hindu scriptures consequently give various accounts of its origin from mixed marriages between the four cla.s.sical castes. "Concerning the traditional parentage of the caste," Sir H. Risley writes, [1]

"there seems to be a wide difference of opinion among the recognised authorities on the subject. Thus the Brahma Vaivartta Purana says that the k.u.mbhakar or maker of water-jars (_k.u.mbka_), is born of a Vaishya woman by a Brahman father; the Parasara Samhita makes the father a Malakar (gardener) and the mother a Chamar; while the Parasara Padhati holds that the ancestor of the caste was begotten of a Tili woman by a Pattikar or weaver of silk cloth." Sir Monier Williams again, in his Sanskrit Dictionary, describes them as the offspring of a Kshatriya woman by a Brahman. No importance can of course be attached to such statements as the above from the point of view of actual fact, but they are interesting as showing the view taken of the formation of castes by the old Brahman writers, and also the position given to the k.u.mhar at the time when they wrote. This varies from a moderately respectable to a very humble one according to the different accounts of his lineage. The caste themselves have a legend of the usual Brahmanical type: "In the Kritayuga, when Maheshwar (Siva) intended to marry the daughter of Hemvanta, the Devas and Asuras [2]

a.s.sembled at Kailas (Heaven). Then a question arose as to who should furnish the vessels required for the ceremony, and one Kulalaka, a Brahman, was ordered to make them. Then Kulalaka stood before the a.s.sembly with folded hands, and prayed that materials might be given to him for making the pots. So Vishnu gave his Sudarsana (discus) to be used as a wheel, and the mountain of Mandara was fixed as a pivot beneath it to hold it up. The sc.r.a.per was Adi Kurma the tortoise, and a rain-cloud was used for the water-tub. So Kulalaka made the pots and gave them to Maheshwar for his marriage, and ever since his descendants have been known as k.u.mbhakar or maker of water-jars."

2. Caste sub-divisions

The k.u.mhars have a number of subcastes, many of which, as might be expected, are of the territorial type and indicate the different localities from which they migrated to the Central Provinces. Such are the Malwi from Malwa, the Telenga from the Telugu country in Hyderabad, the Pardes.h.i.+ from northern India and the Maratha from the Maratha Districts. Other divisions are the Lingayats who belong to the sect of this name, the Gadhewal or Gadhere who make tiles and carry them about on donkeys (_gadha_), the Bardia who use bullocks for transport and the Sungaria who keep pigs (_suar_). Certain endogamous groups have arisen simply from differences in the method of working. Thus the Hathgarhia [3] mould vessels with their hands only without using the wheel; the Goria [4] make white or red pots only and not black ones; the Kurere mould their vessels on a stone slab revolving on a stick and not on a wheel; while the Chakere are k.u.mhars who use the wheel (_chak_) in localities where other k.u.mhars do not use it. The Chhutakia and Rakhotia are illegitimate sections, being the offspring of kept women.

3. Social Customs

Girls are married at an early age when their parents can afford it, the matches being usually arranged at caste feasts. In Chanda parents who allow a daughter to become adolescent while still unwed are put out of caste, but elsewhere the rule is by no means so strict. The ceremony is of the normal type and a Brahman usually officiates, but in Betul it is performed by the Sawasa or husband of the bride's paternal aunt. After the wedding the couple are given kneaded flour to hold in their hands and s.n.a.t.c.h from each other as an emblem of their trade. In Mandla a bride price of Rs. 50 is paid.

The k.u.mhars recognise divorce and the remarriage of widows. If an unmarried girl is detected in criminal intimacy with a member of the caste, she has to give a feast to the caste-fellows and pay a fine of Rs. 1-4 and five locks of her hair are also cut off by way of purification. The caste usually burn the dead, but the Lingayat k.u.mhars always bury them in accordance with the practice of their sect. They wors.h.i.+p the ordinary Hindu deities and make an offering to the implements of their trade on the festival of Deothan Igaras. The village Brahman serves as their priest. In Balaghat a k.u.mhar is put out of caste if a dead cat is found in his house. At the census of 1901 the k.u.mhar was ranked with the impure castes, but his status is not really so low. Sir D. Ibbetson said of him: "He is a true village menial; his social standing is very low, far below that of the Lohar and not much above the Chamar. His a.s.sociation with that impure beast, the donkey, the animal sacred to Sitala, the smallpox G.o.ddess, pollutes him and also his readiness to carry manure and sweepings." As already seen there are in the Central Provinces Sungaria and Gadheria subcastes which keep donkeys and pigs, and these are regarded as impure. But in most Districts the k.u.mhar ranks not much below the Barhai and Lohar, that is in what I have designated the grade of village menials above the impure and below the cultivating castes. In Bengal the k.u.mhars have a much higher status and Brahmans will take water from their hands. But the gradation of caste in Bengal differs very greatly from that of other parts of India.

4. The k.u.mhar as a village menial

The k.u.mhar is not now paid regularly by dues from the cultivators like other village menials, as the ordinary system of sale has no doubt been found more convenient in his case. But he sometimes takes the soiled gra.s.s from the stalls of the cattle and gives pots free to the cultivator in exchange. On Akti day, at the beginning of the agricultural year, the village k.u.mhar of Saugor presents five pots with covers on them to each cultivator and receives 2 1/2 lbs. of grain in exchange. One of these the tenant fills with water and presents to a Brahman and the rest he reserves for his own purposes. On the occasion of a wedding also the bridegroom's party take the bride to the k.u.mharin's house as part of the _sohag_ ceremony for making the marriage propitious. The k.u.mhar seats the bride on his wheel and turns it round with her seven times. The k.u.mharin presents her with seven new pots, which are taken back to the house and used at the wedding. They are filled with water and are supposed to represent the seven seas. If any two of these pots accidentally clash together it is supposed that the bride and bridegroom will quarrel during their married life. In return for this the k.u.mharin receives a present of clothes. At a funeral also the k.u.mhar must supply thirteen vessels which are known as _ghats_, and must also replace the broken earthenware. Like the other village menials at the harvest he takes a new vessel to the cultivator in his field and receives a present of grain. These customs appear to indicate his old position as one of the menials or general servants of the village ranking below the cultivators. Grant-Duff also includes the potter in his list of village menials in the Maratha villages. [5]

5. Occupation

The potter is not particular as to the clay he uses and does not go far afield for the finer qualities, but digs it from the nearest place in the neighbourhood where he can get it free of cost. Red and black clay are employed, the former being obtained near the base of hills or on high-lying land, probably of the laterite formation, and the latter in the beds of tanks or streams. When the clay is thoroughly kneaded and ready for use a lump of it is placed on the centre of the wheel. The potter seats himself in front of the wheel and fixes his stick or _chakrait_ into the slanting hole in its upper surface. With this stick the wheel is made to revolve very rapidly, and sufficient impetus is given to it to keep it in motion for several minutes. The potter then lays aside the stick and with his hands moulds the lump of clay into the shape required, stopping every now and then to give the wheel a fresh spin as it loses its momentum. When satisfied with the shape of his vessel he separates it from the lump with a piece of string, and places it on a bed of ashes to prevent it sticking to the ground. The wheel is either a circular disc cut out of a single piece of stone about a yard in diameter, or an ordinary wooden wheel with spokes forming two diameters at right angles. The rim is then thickened with the addition of a coating of mud strengthened with fibre. [6] The articles made by the potter are ordinary circular vessels or _gharas_ used for storing and collecting water, larger ones for keeping grain, flour and vegetables, and _surahis_ or amphoras for drinking-water. In the manufacture of these last salt and saltpetre are mixed with the clay to make them more porous and so increase their cooling capacity. A very useful thing is the small saucer which serves as a lamp, being filled with oil on which a lighted wick is floated. These saucers resemble those found in the excavations of Roman remains. Earthen vessels are more commonly used, both for cooking and eating purposes among the people of northern India, and especially by Muhammadans, than among the Marathas, and, as already noticed, the k.u.mhar caste musters strong in the north of the Province. An earthen vessel is polluted if any one of another caste takes food or drink from it and is at once discarded. On the occasion of a death all the vessels in the house are thrown away and a new set obtained, and the same measure is adopted at the Holi festival and on the occasion of an eclipse, and at various other ceremonial purifications, such as that entailed if a member of the household has had maggots in a wound. On this account cheapness is an indispensable quality in pottery, and there is no opening for the k.u.mhar to improve his art. Another product of the k.u.mhar's industry is the _chilam_ or pipe-bowl. This has the usual opening for inhaling the smoke but no stem, an impromptu stem being made by the hands and the smoke inhaled through it. As the _chilam_ is not touched by the mouth, Hindus of all except the impure castes can smoke it together, pa.s.sing it round, and Hindus can also smoke it with Muhammadans.

It is a local belief that, if an earthen pot is filled with salt and plastered over, the rains will stop until it is opened. This device is adopted when the fall is excessive, but, on the other hand, if there is drought, the people sometimes think that the potter has used it to keep off the rain, because he cannot pursue his calling when the clay is very wet. And on occasions of a long break in the rains, they have been known to attack his shop and break all his vessels under the influence of this belief. The potter is sometimes known as Praj.a.pati or the 'The Creator,' in accordance with the favourite comparison made by ancient writers of the moulding of his pots with the creation of human beings, the justice of which will be recognised by any one who watches the ma.s.ses of mud on a whirling wheel growing into shapely vessels in the potter's creating hands.

6. Breeding pigs for sacrifices

Certain k.u.mhars as well as the Dhimars make the breeding of pigs a means of subsistence, and they sell these pigs for sacrifices at prices varying from eight annas (8d.) to a rupee. The pigs are sacrificed by the Gonds to their G.o.d Bura Deo and by Hindus to the deity Bhainsasur, or the buffalo demon, for the protection of the crops. Bhainsasur is represented by a stone in the fields, and when crops are beaten down at night by the wind it is supposed that Bhainsasur has pa.s.sed over them and trampled them down. Hindus, usually of the lower castes, offer pigs to Bhainsasur to propitiate him and preserve their crops from his ravages, but they cannot touch the impure pig themselves. What they have to do, therefore, is to pay the k.u.mhar the price of the pig and get him to offer it to Bhainsasur on their behalf. The k.u.mhar goes to the G.o.d and sacrifices the pig and then takes the body home and eats it, so that his trade is a profitable one, while conversely to sacrifice a pig without partaking of its flesh must necessarily be bitter to the frugal Hindu mind, and this indicates the importance of the deity who is to be propitiated by the offering. The first question which arises in connection with this curious custom is why pigs should be sacrificed for the preservation of the crops; and the reason appears to be that the wild pig is the animal which, at present, mainly damages the crops.

7. The G.o.ddess Demeter

In ancient Greece pigs were offered to Demeter, the corn-G.o.ddess, for the protection of the crops, and there is good reason to suppose that the conceptions of Demeter herself and the lovely Proserpine grew out of the wors.h.i.+p of the pig, and that both G.o.ddesses were in the beginning merely the deified pig. The highly instructive pa.s.sage in which Sir J. G. Frazer advances this theory is reproduced almost in full [7]: "Pa.s.sing next to the corn-G.o.ddess Demeter, and remembering that in European folklore the pig is a common embodiment of the corn-spirit, we may now ask whether the pig, which was so closely a.s.sociated with Demeter, may not originally have been the G.o.ddess herself in animal form? The pig was sacred to her; in art she was portrayed carrying or accompanied by a pig; and the pig was regularly sacrificed in her mysteries, the reason a.s.signed being that the pig injures the corn and is therefore an enemy of the G.o.ddess. But after an animal has been conceived as a G.o.d, or a G.o.d as an animal, it sometimes happens, as we have seen, that the G.o.d sloughs off his animal form and becomes purely anthropomorphic; and that then the animal which at first had been slain in the character of the G.o.d, comes to be viewed as a victim offered to the G.o.d on the ground of its hostility to the deity; in short, that the G.o.d is sacrificed to himself on the ground that he is his own enemy. This happened to Dionysus and it may have happened to Demeter also. And in fact the rites of one of her festivals, the Thesmophoria, bear out the view that originally the pig was an embodiment of the corn-G.o.ddess herself, either Demeter or her daughter and double Proserpine. The Thesmophoria was an autumn festival celebrated by women alone in October, and appears to have represented with mourning rites the descent of Proserpine (or Demeter) into the lower world, and with joy her return from the dead. Hence the name Descent or Ascent variously applied to the first, and the name _Kalligeneia_ (fair-born) applied to the third day of the festival. Now from an old scholium on Lucian we learn some details about the mode of celebrating the Thesmophoria, which shed important light on the part of the festival called the Descent or the Ascent. The scholiast tells us that it was customary at the Thesmophoria to throw pigs, cakes of dough, and branches of pine-trees into 'the chasms of Demeter and Proserpine,' which appear to have been sacred caverns or vaults.

"In these caverns or vaults there were said to be serpents, which guarded the caverns and consumed most of the flesh of the pigs and dough-cakes which were thrown in. Afterwards--apparently at the next annual festival--the decayed remains of the pigs, the cakes, and the pine-branches were fetched by women called 'drawers,' who, after observing, rules of ceremonial purity for three days, descended into the caverns, and, frightening away the serpents by clapping their hands, brought up the remains and placed them on the altar. Whoever got a piece of the decayed flesh and cakes, and sowed it with the seed-corn in his field, was believed to be sure of a good crop.

"To explain this rude and ancient rite the following legend was told. At the moment when Pluto carried off Proserpine, a swineherd called Eubuleus chanced to be herding his swine on the spot, and his herd was engulfed in the chasm down which Pluto vanished with Proserpine. Accordingly, at the Thesmophoria pigs were annually thrown into caverns to commemorate the disappearance of the swine of Eubuleus. It follows from this that the casting of the pigs into the vaults at the Thesmophoria formed part of the dramatic representation of Proserpine's descent into the lower world; and as no image of Proserpine appears to have been thrown in, we may infer that the descent of the pigs was not so much an accompaniment of her descent as the descent itself, in short, that the pigs were Proserpine. Afterwards, when Proserpine or Demeter (for the two are equivalent) became anthropomorphic, a reason had to be found for the custom of throwing pigs into caverns at her festival; and this was done by saying that when Pluto carried off Proserpine, there happened to be some swine browsing near, which were swallowed up along with her. The story is obviously a forced and awkward attempt to bridge over the gulf between the old conception of the corn-spirit as a pig and the new conception of her as an anthropomorphic G.o.ddess. A trace of the older conception survived in the legend that when the sad mother was searching for traces of the vanished Proserpine, the footprints of the lost one were obliterated by the footprints of a pig; originally, we may conjecture, the footprints of the pig were the footprints of Proserpine and of Demeter herself. A consciousness of the intimate connection of the pig with the corn lurks in the legend that the swineherd Eubuleus was a brother of Triptolemus, to whom Demeter first imparted the secret of the corn. Indeed, according to one version of the story, Eubuleus himself received, jointly with his brother Triptolemus, the gift of the corn from Demeter as a reward for revealing to her the fate of Proserpine. Further, it is to be noted that at the Thesmophoria the women appear to have eaten swine's flesh. The meal, if I am right, must have been a solemn sacrament or communion, the wors.h.i.+ppers partaking of the body of the G.o.d."

8. Estimation of the pig in India